Heather – Brian Davis

13 people die every day waiting for an organ transplant. If not for two donor families, my wife Heather could have been one of those 13.

Shortly after having walking pneumonia in 1993, Heather went to the ER with difficulty breathing. The diagnosis was stunning.

At just 21 years old, Heather was suffering from congestive heart failure.

A virus caused her heart to enlarge and fluid to collect in her lungs. After all medical options were exhausted, Heather was placed on the waiting list for a heart transplant.

After a 40-day hospital stay, the transplant was performed in January 1995 at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. In their grief, the family of a young man killed in a traffic accident chose to give Heather another chance at life.

Not long after Heather and I married in 2004, she found a lump in her breast and began her first battle with cancer. While ultimately successful, the cancer treatment damaged her transplanted heart. At the same time, her kidneys began to fail, likely due to the powerful anti-rejection medication required post-transplant. Heather was again listed for transplant.

Finding a match was far more difficult this second time, and Heather was hospitalized for seven months. Eventually, the organs were located, and a heart/kidney transplant was performed in July 2011. (The donor family chose not to share any details about their loved one. We respect their privacy and are grateful for their selfless gift.)

The second transplant was as successful as the first, and Heather returned to her life. Unfortunately, the immunosuppressants that kept her body from rejecting the new organs left her vulnerable to other diseases, namely cancer. She was able to fight off aggressive ovarian cancer in 2015, but when her breast cancer returned in late 2017 (despite having undergone a preventative mastectomy), her body was too weak to fight. The cancer quickly spread to her brain, and Heather died on February 16, 2018.

Thanks to her donors, Heather was able to live to age 44 — more than doubling her lifespan.

Heather didn’t take her second (and third!) chance at life lightly. She made the most of her additional time, enjoying the people and activities she loved.

She met and married a well-meaning idiot. She took her disappointment at not being able to have children and channeled it into being the Best Dog Mom Ever for our three cocker spaniels. Nieces, nephews, kids of friends and children she randomly met at Target were spoiled rotten. She made people laugh (generally using sarcasm as a weapon).

And she gave back. Heather took part in countless events to benefit heart and organ donation charities. She became a gifted speaker, happily sharing her story at events, support groups and in classrooms from elementary schools to graduate programs.

But death didn’t stop her from bringing the joy. Her self-penned obituary was the most-viewed story on the local newspaper’s website for a week. It was shared thousands of times on social media and was discussed on several radio and television programs nationwide. (Read the obit in the section below.)

The world is better for having had Heather in it — but that wouldn’t have happened without the generosity of her donors.

Please register to donate here, and be sure to tell your family so they can fulfill your wishes.

Combine a super personable individual with some crazy health challenges, and you have people lined up to tell the story. Here are some articles written about Heather. Click on a title to expand.

Dubuquer gets heart: after 40-day wait; Neal in recovery

by Susan B. Gwiasda
January 9, 1995 • Dubuque Telegraph Herald

When Heather Neal’s physician asked Sunday if she had plans for the evening, the 21-year-old rural Dubuque woman said she was open to suggestions.

Fifteen hours later Heather was in the intensive care unit, recovering from a heart transplant operation.

After she had spent 40 days at St. Marys Hospital, Rochester, a compatible donor heart was located for Heather Sunday evening.

At 4 a m. today, the transplant operation began, finishing at 7 a.m, today.

“The heart’s in and working well,” said Dr. Chris McGregor, the surgeon who operated.

Heather Neal became sick in the fall of 1993 following a bout with walking pneumonia. In October of that year, she was rushed to the emergency room after having difficulty breathing. The Neals were shocked by Heather’s diagnosis — congestive heart failure.

A virus had made its way to her heart causing it to enlarge and fluid to collect in her lungs. A series of medications to strengthen the heart during the next several months were ineffective. Finally Heather was placed on the waiting list for a donor heart.

For Heather’s parents, Rose and Walter Neal, the new heart is just the beginning of their daughter’s recovery.

“We’re not out of the woods just yet,” Rose Neal. “We’ve got lots to go. There will be ups and downs.”

Yet the family was pleased by the good compatibility. “I feel good,” Walter Neal said. “I’m glad the wait is over. Now we see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

Heather’s surgery finished as the first light of morning was visible through the waiting room windows.

After waiting up most of the night, the Neal family — including an assortment of relatives who rushed to the hospital, expressed relief at the surgeon’s report.

“I’m tired though,” Walter Neal said as he headed down the hospital corridor in search of coffee. “Very tired.”

Heather’s expected to remain in the hospital for 12 days following the surgery.

The Mayo Clinic, which has an association with St. Marys Hospital, has been doing heart transplants for five years. Heather was the 84th patient to receive another heart.

Neal 'feels pretty good'

by Susan B. Gwiasda
January 10, 1995 • Dubuque Telegraph Herald

A day after her heart transplant operation, Heather Neal was conscious and speaking to her parents.

“She feels pretty good,” said Rose Neal, Heather’s mother. “We’re talking to her for the first time. Her throat is a little sore.”

Heather, 21, of rural Dubuque, has been waiting for a new heart since she was admitted to St. Marys Hospital, Rochester, at the end of November. Late Sunday evening, after 40 days in the hospital, a compatible donor heart was found.

The surgery was completed in three hours, finishing at 7 a.m. Monday. “They are pleased with everything,” Rose Neal said.

Neal has been sick since the fall of 1993 An apparent viral infection caused her heart to enlarge and fluid to collect in her lungs. After a year of taking medications, Neal was placed on a waiting list for a heart transplant.

Mayo Clinic, which has an association with St Marys Hospital, has a 90-95 percent one-year survival rate for heart transplant patients. Neal is the 84th patient to receive a new heart through Mayo.

Heart recipient released

by Susan B. Gwiasda
January 25, 1995 • Dubuque Telegraph Herald

Following a heart transplant and 53 days in intensive care, Heather Neal, 21, of rural Dubuque, was allowed to leave St. Marys Hospital, Rochester, Minn., on Sunday.

Neal will stay in the Rochester area for 90 days while she recovers from the operation. She will receive treat-ment on an outpatient basis, including weekly biopsies to detect infection or rejection of her new heart.

Neal entered the hospital Nov. 29 after being diagnosed with congestive heart failure a year earlier. She hud undergone drug therapy with disappointing results and was placed on the waiting list for a donor heart.

Neal received a new heart Jan. 9 in a three-hour operation.

Walter and Rose Neal, Heather’s parents, were with their daughter during the procedure and recovery. They say she is doing well.

“Heather is glad to be moving on, said Rose Neal.

One of Heather Neal’s first requests after surgery was a meal from Taco Bell.

While she experienced reactions to medication immediately after the surgery, Neal has regained her appetite.

There are several benefits being planned in Dubuque and St. Catherine during February to help defray costs of the heart transplant operation and associated expenses. The operation alone is estimated to top $200,000.

A heart for Heather

by Susan B. Gwiasda
June 25, 1995 • Dubuque Telegraph Herald

Heather Neal sits up in bed wheezing.

It is the fourth time she has attempted sleep and with each effort it becomes more and more difficult to breathe.

In the dark hours of a cool October morning, Heather makes her way downstairs to the bathroom. She has allergies and has experienced shortness of breath before. But never like this.

“It was like when you run a marathon and you’re hyperventilating — that’s how it was,” she recalled later.

“I just thought it would go away.”

Until then, it had been a normal night for the 20-year-old woman. Heather had clocked out of work at the Eagle Country Market on Kennedy Road in Dubuque around midnight and drove the winding highway back to her rural Bellevue, Iowa, home.

She watched television, balanced her checkbook and went to bed after 1 a.m. A night owl, Heather usually enjoyed the late hours, watching television or relishing the quiet of the house.

Yet this night is different.

Once in the bathroom, Heather’s labored breathing wakes her mother, Rose Neal, a nurse at The Finley Hospital.

Rose immediately calls the hospital. Heather tries her inhaler, but she is still gasping for breath. The two head for the Dubuque hospital where, only a month ago, Heather had been diagnosed with walking pneumonia.

Once at Finley, Heather is so winded she is unable to speak. Rose answers questions for her. A chest X-ray is taken.

When the emergency room physician tells her the news, 20-year-old Heather isn’t sure how to react to the diagnosis. She asks her mother if she’s going to die.

“He came in and said ‘you’re in congestive heart failure’,” Heather recalled. “When you’ve got the words ‘heart’ and ‘failure’ in the same sentence — you know there’s something wrong.”

Congestive heart failure — when the heart is unable to pump enough blood to meet the needs of the body — has unknown origins. Although Heather will never know for sure, her illness may have been caused by a viral infection that made its way to her heart.

Heather is admitted to the hospital where she stays for several days. When she is discharged, the family makes plans to consult specialists at the Mayo Hospitals in Rochester, Minn.

Through the coming months, Heather’s physicians experiment with a variety of medications to ease the strain on her heart.

The results are minimal.

By May 1994, a heart transplant becomes the viable option.

For Rose and Walter Neal, Heather’s parents, learning more about Heather’s condition is the beginning of an odyssey with physicians, surgeons, medications and hospital visits their daughter will have to maintain for the rest of her life.

“We were hoping the situation would reverse itself,” Rose said. “But that didn’t happen”

It is every parent’s worst nightmare.

When Heather Neal became sick in the fall of 1993 nobody suspected the extent of her illness or how it would affect her family.

Heather — dark-eyed, sharp-tongued and quick with a laugh — had always been healthy. Although heavy in high school, in the years following her 1991 graduation from Wahlert High School she shed 60 pounds through a combination of jaw surgery to correct an overbite and a busy schedule that left little time to eat.

By the time Heather entered Clarke College, some classmates from high school had difficulty recognizing her. Between the weight loss, jaw surgery and her thick dark hair that had grown down her shoulders, her change was apparent in the bewildered expression of former classmates.

“I actually had a girl at Clarke come up to me and say ‘You look a lot like Heather Neal,’” Heather said with amusement.

After three semesters at college and uncertain of what major she wanted to pursue, Heather took a break from school and began working full time at the bakery at Eagle Country Market, a job she had started after high school. Her hours were erratic, often beginning at 3 a.m.; eventually she was promoted to evening cashier, and her shift would end around midnight.

When Heather was diagnosed with walking pneumonia in September 1993, her parents were concerned that Heather was pushing herself too hard.

“I saw her working at Eagle one night,” Walt said. “She didn’t see me. She was walking away, and she walked like a really old person. She went to work a lot of times when she was sick.”

• • •

It has been more than a year since the original diagnosis. Medications have failed, and the only option is a transplant.

Heather arrives in Rochester with her mother shortly after Thanksgiving. Seriously ill, she settles into a corner room in the cardiac intensive care unit at St. Marys Hospital, one of several Mayo Hospitals.

Once admitted, Heather’s status is upgraded to “urgent,” and she is given priority when a donor heart becomes available.

The Neals quickly realize Heather’s stay could be lengthy.

“When I came in, they handed me Heather’s coat. They said I might as well take this home. There’s not a lot of room in here,” Rose says.

Over the days that turn into weeks, the tiny room with its single window and barren walls evolves from utilitarian to almost cozy. Cards from well-wishers, photographs of friends and Christmas decor fill the nooks and crannies. Space is made for a miniature Christmas tree, complete with lights and decorations.

Rose takes a leave of absence from her job as an obstetrics nurse at Finley and rents a two-bedroom furnished apartment a few miles from St. Marys. Even if the transplant is immediate, Heather would need to stay near the hospital for three months afterward and be available for weekly tests.’

As her health deteriorates, one thing becomes obvious: Heather’s heart, enlarged and dying, is working harder but less efficiently.

Though Heather desperately wants to spend the holidays with family and friends near Bellevue, it is not feasible. Her condition has deteriorated.

From the physician’s perspective, the holidays offer some of the best opportunities for transplants. Many people traveling and poor weather conditions often, unfortunately, result in accidents. Motor vehicle deaths are often a source of young, healthy organs. If a heart becomes available, the cardiovascular surgeons want Heather to be ready.

In the weeks prior to her heart transplant, Heather’s family and friends log thousands of miles by car and plane between Bellevue, Dubuque and Rochester. Her boyfriend, Eric Konrardy, who is finishing his senior year in high school, visits once and calls frequently.

Walter Neal begins to carry a beeper to work at FDL Foods Inc. and a cellular telephone in his truck.

Heather drags her intravenous stand around the brightly lit halls of the cardiac intensive care unit. A monitor rests at the top of the stand near several bags of clear fluid. A bright red digital display ticks off the drips as they follow hollow tubes into Heather’s veins.

She requires several medications. Blood thinners, infection fighters and other pharmaceuticals are essential to maintaining her physical condition.

It is not good. Her heart is growing weaker each day. It is enlarged, the heart muscle increasing in size as it is forced to work harder and harder.

Heather is encouraged to exercise. She walks slow laps around the nurses’ station.

The collection of desks and equipment is placed in the middle of a half-dozen rooms with nurses constantly checking patients, watching monitors and completing paperwork. After circling the station several times, Heather rests in her room.

She has been attached to monitors for weeks, and the equipment is quickly assimilated into daily life. The IV tubes that snake across Heather’s body become playthings.

With perfectly manicured fingers, she flicks at the bubbles that form in the liquid.

Her fingernails are perfect, she says with a sarcastic laugh, because she can’t do anything. Her mother’s fingernails, she adds, also are perfect.

Her hospital room is frequently filled with the chatter of friends and family but, late in the evening, the room is empty and silent. Heather remains awake and alert long after the other patients are asleep and a new shift of nurses takes over.

The nurses who staff the fourth floor unit, Domitilla South, say they are amazed by Heather’s good spirits and optimistic attitude. The team of cardiologists who care for Heather often enter her room saying, “Who’s the patient here?”

“It used to bother me that people would say ‘I saw Heather; she looks so good,”’ Rose says. “Because she’s not good — look at the inside.”

“When I tell my friends I need a heart transplant, it takes them a while to believe me because I do look fine,” Heather says.

“Now that my friends are OK with it, I have about four mothers not including this one,” she says, gesturing to Rose. “We’re awful together.”

“We’re like two kids,” Rose replies.

“It’s horrible. Sometimes we’re exactly alike,” says Heather. “But then, I’m a lot like my father.”

Maintaining a positive outlook while counting off day after day in the intensive care unit might be easier for Heather than it is for her mother, or even the medical staff. Heather works hard at keeping things light. Her brother Phil, 25, takes after her mother.

“My mother likes to worry about everything,” she says. “I’m like my Dad — I don’t worry unless there’s something to worry about. If I was on my deathbed, I’d worry. But now, I don’t.”

Heather’s days are spent talking on the phone, writing letters and sorting through the mountain of correspondence that collects. There are the cards that make her smile, such as handmade get-well wishes that arrive from St. Anthony’s School in Dubuque, and there are formal letters from insurance companies and hospital bills that evoke a different reaction.

Heather pulls a questionnaire from her employer that needs to be completed and returned. She reads the instructions aloud with a hint of amusement in her voice.

“Reason for leave of absence,” she reads and pauses. “Be specific, it says.”

The Neals break into laughter.

“Well,” says Heather, “do you think heart transplant is specific enough?”

• • •

The squish of sensible rubber soles echo down the halls of St. Marys Hospital. The sound lingers seconds beyond the efficient stride of the footsteps.

The winding corridors of the 100-year-old hospital meander past patient rooms, administrative offices and nurses stations. Past pale statues of the Virgin Mary tucked into tiny alcoves, sterile metal gurneys resting against stark white walls, harsh fluorescent lighting and scrubbed floors.

The well-worn tile that follows the corridors connect the original hospital with new extensions.

Rose Neal now maneuvers the halls like a veteran employee.

She knows the short cuts, stairways and back elevators. She knows the vending machines, chapel Masses and coffee shop hours.

It would be easy to get lost in the maze of units, connecting halls and offices, yet Rose walks confidently through the halls, barely looking at signs.

A nurse, Rose is comfortable in hospitals.

Yet her familiarity with St. Marys has no connection to her job.

Rose also must learn to negotiate the city of Rochester, a bustling community similar in size to Dubuque, centered around the hospitals and thriving medical community.

Living in an apartment away from her husband is a radical lifestyle change for Rose.

“I had never lived in an apartment in my life,” she said. “I didn’t even know what to look for or how to look.”

Rose selected the apartment carefully, yet it is on the third floor and there’s no elevator. Steps would be difficult for Heather after surgery, but the steps are divided into groups of seven with a landing between floors.

While the circumstances make it difficult to make friends, Rose develops some limited relationships. The people she meets are concerned about Heather and ask about her. In Rochester, there is a sense of familiarity about surgical procedures, operations and sophisticated medical testing.

Hospital parking lots are crowded with cars sporting license plates from all corners of the country. It is a community very much aware of the abundance of medical technology available while respectful of the need for privacy.

In the cafes and restaurants that line the street outside St. Marys, cheery waitresses pour hot coffee to customers with tear-stained faces without asking questions.

Hotels offer a special rate to families with hospital business and furnished apartments are advertised with weekly rates.

Rose doesn’t spend a lot of time in the apartment.

“Each day varies, but I usually get to the hospital after 8 a.m.,” she said. “When I come in the morning, I sit quietly and wait for Heather to wake up.”

Rose may play cards, do needlepoint, go shopping or sneak in some non-hospital food for lunch including Heather’s favorite — Spaghettios.

The day ends about 10 p.m. when she returns to her apartment. “Usually by the time I get there, I go to bed,” she admits.

In Bellevue, Walt adjusts to living without his wife and daughter. He has dinner frequently with Phil, other relatives, concerned friends and neighbors. But it is obvious he is poorly suited to a bachelor’s life.

“I did water the plants once,” he says, smiling sheepishly. “I think I was supposed to water them once a week.”

Walt makes the 3.5-hour drive to Rochester every weekend to visit his wife and daughter. It is 197 miles a straight shot on US 52. But the highway is filled with curves and twists that make it dangerous in the winter. Walt explores other routes and carpools with relatives.

Weekends are spent, for the most part, in Heather’s hospital room watching sports on television or movies on the VCR. Walt, a smoker, frequently goes outside for a break He grinds cigarette butts into the cold concrete sidewalk or grabs a cup of coffee in the nearby Rainbow Cafe.

Looking beyond their own misfortune, the Neals can’t say enough good things about the people they’ve met

“This whole thing has really brought out the best in everybody,” Rose says “People we don’t even know. Even the guy who helped us put together Christmas dinner, he wouldn’t even take a tip.”

• • •

Heather has been in the hospital 39 days. Her mother has spent every day with her.

Nobody in the Neal family knows more than Rose the potential risks of Heather’s illness. With her nursing background, Rose is acutely aware of the dangers of a failing heart and the complications that could follow. Additionally, waiting for a donor, battling infection and fighting rejection only adds to the seriousness of the situation

The statistics are overwhelming — 30 percent of organ transplant patients die while waiting for an organ.

Like Heather, Rose tries to remain optimistic — a difficult task as the days add up.

The view out the hospital’s corner window has changed little over the weeks. Snow has sprinkled the ground in a light blanket, and the brief periods of sunshine are unusually lucid and bright. The window looks out over the red brick attached church where Rose and Walt attend Mass on Sundays.

While Heather’s friends talk of spring break trips to Mexico, California and Florida, Heather’s feet are firmly planted in the present. Her goal is simple: A step outside.

She has been outside the hospital only once since being admitted. On Christmas Day, unusually warm for a December in Minnesota, Heather took a few steps out into the fresh air.

Heather continues to exercise. She has pedaled nearly 200 miles on the exercise machine in her room. She has logged hundreds of laps around the nurses’ station in the hall outside her hospital room in an effort to maintain a minimal level of fitness.

Some days, she is so weak that getting out of bed is a challenge.

Heather rarely leaves the unit. If she does, a nurse accompanies her and the pair negotiates the various equipment Heather requires.

“My goal in life is to go to the bathroom without unplugging myself,” Heather says with a sigh. “To take a shower without all these tubes.”

Other days are reserved for medical tests. Once per week, Heather walks the equivalent of three blocks to undergo chest X-rays. It is a long, exhausting task.

“I’m being passed by old people,” Heather says while pushing a wheelchair which holds her heart monitor. When Heather reaches the X-ray unit, she collapses in a chair.

After the X-ray and a brief visit to the hospital gift shop, Heather and Rose return to Heather’s room.

Rose is working on a needlepoint project, and is teaching Heather. The days pass slowly

“It’s a wait. One day at a time,” Rose said “If you get the call, you go from there. It’s kind of a limbo. This is your life, and these are your limitations.”

January 8 is the day it all changed for the Neals. A car accident takes the life of a 19-year-old Minnesota man whose family agrees to donate his organs.

It is Sunday afternoon when Dr. Brooks Edwards, clad in chinos, a sport shirt and a white lab coat enters the room. Heather notices he is wearing tennis shoes and she makes a mental note. She would later recall the clothing was too casual for a routine visit.

Heather is alone with her sister-in-law Jana and her 4-month-old nephew, Austin. Walter has headed back to Dubuque, and Rose is out on an errand.

The weak winter sun is setting, and the room is growing dark. Before the Mayo cardiologist speaks, nurses gather in the corner.

The room is strangely silent.

“Do you have plans tonight?” the doctor asks with a grin. “We have a potential donor.”

It is 4:50 p.m.

• • •

While it is still only the chance of a donor and not definite, the preparation begins. Heather is not allowed to eat and certain medications are discontinued. She makes a few phone calls.

Rose returns and Heather tells her the news. Hose maintains a calm exterior.

“We have to call Dad,” Rose says.

“No, we don’t know anything yet,” Heather answers.

“We have to make plans.”

“How would you know — like you’ve done this before,” Heather snaps.

There is too much uncertainty. No one is sure what to do.

By 8 p.m., the transplant is definite.

“So this is actually going to happen,” Heather says. “I am really going to do this.”

The statement sounds more like a question.

• • •

Even as she is on the gurney being wheeled into another unit for pre-surgery preparations, Heather is on the telephone. In the weeks that she waited for her heart, it has been her lifeline, her connection with the outside world.

Heather talks to her grandmother before she is taken away “Everybody is here,” Heather says into the phone “We have a big party going on.”

It is after midnight.

Along the hospital corridors the slapping of heels against tile and the rolling of the monitor and gurney is punctuated by Heather’s laughter. An entourage of family members lags behind the quick stride of the medical staff.

“People really get their exercise around here,” said Burdette Neal, Heather’s uncle, struggling to keep pace. They will walk the equivalent of several blocks to reach the surgery.

At 12:40 a.m., the family gathers around Heather for one last hug before she disappears through double doors and down a restricted corridor. Rose begins to cry. Walt smiles and tells his daughter to have a good time

“I feel good,” he says, watching the gurney. “We can see an end to all this now We’ve been preparing for this for months.”

The family returns to Heather’s room and Rose takes charge. It’s time to move. The place must be taken apart, decorations removed and cards and photographs packed away. Heather will not be returning to the unit. Paper chains and snowflakes are folded and put away.

Keeping busy, says Rose, keeps her mind off what is happening.

By 3 a.m., the family receives word that Heather is under anesthesia and the operation will begin shortly

At 4 a.m., the procedure begins. A nurse comes in throughout the night to update the family. The Neals have finished the packing and are waiting in a lounge near the surgery

“She’s in good hands,” says the nurse. “He’s a good surgeon. He’s very careful.”

Family members, scattered in easy chairs or with hospital pillows and blankets on the floor, look at each other for reassurance after the nurse has left.

“That sounded pretty good,” Burdette says, and the rest agree.

At 7 a.m., Dr. Christopher McGregor enters the waiting room. He is smiling.

“The new heart is in and working well. She should be up here in her new room,” he said. “The first 24 hours are potentially the most dangerous. We gave the heart one electric shock, which is usually the rule.”

The Neal family breathes a collective sigh of relief.

The sun is just beginning to break the horizon, and the sky is a pink-purple haze.

They will later be told the heart McGregor removed from Heather had nearly doubled in size — equal to two fists. It would have lasted, it is estimated, a maximum of six weeks before giving out completely.

Walt leaves the lounge and walks down the long hospital corridor on his way outside for a cigarette. His hands are rubbing at his eves

“I’m glad the wait is over. Now I see the light at the end of the tunnel,” he said. “I’m tired though, very tired. I can’t remember the last time I stayed up this late.”

• • •

By mid-morning, Heather has reached the recovery unit. The Neals have been warned she will look puffy and be cool to the touch. They will be allowed a very brief visit.

Dr Brooks Edwards, the cardiologist who told Heather about the donor, greets the family. He warns them not to neglect their own health

Rose hasn’t slept the entire night; Walter slept only briefly.

“You need to pace yourself. Three days from now when Heather’s awake, I don’t want you asleep.” he says before updating her condition “She looks really good, so we’re delighted.”

At 11 a.m., the Neals see their daughter for the first time since the operation.

When Walt leaves the room, he is smiling. ‘The new heart has a perfect pattern, and she’s sound asleep,” he says.

“It looks like a good one,” adds Rose.

• • •

Heather will spend 13 days in two separate intensive care units before being discharged.

The first week is rough.

Heather experiences nausea and vomiting as her medications are modified. She undergoes several biopsies, a procedure which involves snipping a tiny piece of the new heart and checking it under a microscope for rejection. The biopsy results are all encouraging. Only one shows a slight rejection.

Heather experiences pain across her incision, but it’s manageable. It aches when she laughs “I had the hiccups. That hurt,” she says.

After leaving the hospital and moving into the Rochester apartment with her mother, Heather’s life focuses on returning for checkups, monitoring and tests. Yet she has the freedom to go shopping, to cook her own meals and to sleep in.

As the days progress, Heather continues to receive good reports from physicians. She is exercising two to three times per week by walking on a treadmill or riding a stationary bike.

Heather makes plans for her first weekend at home. Her friends, and her boyfriend, Eric, say they are ecstatic about her long-awaited homecoming. It will be the first time in more than three months that Rose will sleep in her own bed.

A friend of the Neals’ flies the family back. At the Dubuque airport, a group of friends gathers to welcome Heather home, including neighbors from Bellevue and little boys Heather used to babysit.

• • •

Looking back, the 40-day wait for a donor heart, surgery and recovery seems like a distant memory for the Neal family. It has softened, as memories do, into something less stressful, less harsh and less painful.

“In some respects when you see Heather, you almost forget that you did that,” Rose said. “We have the old Heather back with the energy.”

The experience will never leave the family.

It stays with them, fading as slowly and stubbornly as the Minnesota snow.

The reminders are always there. Heather takes medication every day and must be careful to avoid illness and infection. She is on a restricted diet and exercises regularly.

Every week, she will return to Rochester for biopsies. In time, those will be done less frequently. But Heather will always remain in close contact with the Mayo staff.

The good times — cheering for the Chicago Bears on television, sneaking a Big Mac into the hospital, playing Nintendo and watching “West Side Story” on video — have replaced less pleasant memories of the holidays spent away from home, the days of boredom, weakness and nausea, of waking in the early morning to the pokes and pricks of medical staff.

• • •

Walt and Rose Neal are the kind of neighbors most would be happy to have next door. They have lived in rural Bellevue for more than 15 years, buying their white wooden-frame home when it was near ruin and fixing it up room by room.

The couple met at a church dance, married 29 years ago and adopted two children, Heather and Philip. They have one grandson.

The Neals’ experience is one that could affect anyone. Instead of fragmenting the family as an unexpected tragedy can do, Heather’s heart transplant pulled them together.

The lines that once drew tight across Rose Neal’s face have faded. Cautious smiles have been replaced by cheery giggles.

Maybe it’s the warm summer days that have smoothed the edge in her expression and eased the anxiety in her voice, but friends of the Neal family know better — the transition seemingly occurred in a heartbeat.

In a sense, it did.

Bloomington woman carries on, finds humor in 20 years of medical crises

Heather Davis shows a stained glass dove that she made in recreational therapy as she awaited her second heart transplant and her first kidney transplant at Mayo Clinic in 2011. Heather and her husband, Brian, remain upbeat despite Heather’s more than 20 years of medical crises.

by Paul Swiech
December 4, 2015 • Bloomington Pantagraph

Heather Davis has an unusual sense of humor.

Like the time she slipped and broke both ankles and her reaction was to laugh.

Or the time when she was diagnosed with aggressive ovarian cancer and her response was “I know!”

Or when she’s asked to do something she doesn’t want to do and her reply is “No, I have cancer.”‘ Pause. Then she does it.

When you have had congestive heart failure, gallbladder removal, a near-death experience, two heart transplants, kidney dialysis, a kidney transplant, breast cancer, two broken ankles and aggressive ovarian cancer, a dark sense of humor is not just understandable. It’s lifesaving.

“I tell people, you always have a choice,” Heather, 42, said in the kitchen of her Bloomington home, with her husband, Brian, sitting beside her, a basket full of at least 35 medicines that she takes each day on the table in front of her and the Davises’ three cocker spaniels vying for her attention.

“I can bitch and moan about it or I can make light of it,” she said. “I choose to make light of it.”

“After all these years (of bad medical news), we’re kind of numb to it,” admitted Brian, 41, her husband of 11 years.

“It’s us,” Heather said with a smile. “It’ll happen.”

“Her circumstances are exceptional,” said her medical oncologist, Dr. Pankaj Kumar of Illinois CancerCare in Bloomington.

“She is very tough,” Kumar said. “She finds humor in all of this, which is incredible.”

“She is so young,” he continued. “She is facing mortality issues that most people face in their 80s. But she is upbeat and is smiling, which has helped her to continue to move from one condition to another condition.”

Heather — a Dubuque, Iowa, native — went from an active, volleyball-playing 20-year-old one month to gasping for breath the next month. She was rushed to a hospital and found to have congestive heart failure.

“I was a little freaked.”

She was rushed to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., where she was diagnosed with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy, an abnormality of the heart muscle.

“My heart is too big and they don’t know why,” Heather explained.

Medications didn’t help so Heather became a candidate for a heart transplant in late 1994.

Along the way, gallstones were discovered so her gallbladder was removed. The surgery was needed before a heart transplant to reduce the risk of infection.

Her transplant was Jan. 8, 1995. Three months after the transplant, she returned home and three months later she returned to work.

“I felt good. I resumed a normal life.”

Until 2004, when — shortly after she and Brian wed and they were living in Appleton, Wis. — she found a lump in her left breast.

“The doctor came in and said ‘You have breast cancer. I said, ‘You’re kidding me.’ How can I survive a heart transplant only to get breast cancer?”

Mayo confirmed the diagnosis. “They had to take the entire breast,” she said. Then she had chemotherapy, whose side effects included hair loss.

“Two things I liked about myself were my hair and my cleavage and I ended up losing them both.”

Heather went on Tamoxifen, which is prescribed for women with advanced or early breast cancer.

“I was 31 and I was going through menopause and hot flashes,” she said. “I wanted kids and when I realized I couldn’t have them, I was pretty upset.”

In early 2010, she passed out at work and was rushed to the emergency department.

“I was listening outside the door and I heard them say ‘We don’t have anything’ (a pulse) and I heard them yelling at her,” Brian recalled.

After Heather’s heart rhythm was restored, she was rushed to a hospital in Madison, Wis., where it was discovered that the left side of her heart wasn’t pumping correctly. She was told to go home and get her affairs in order.

“I was really pissed off,” Heather said. She went to Mayo, where a doctor told her that death wasn’t imminent. Her ejection fraction, which measures how well a heart is pumping blood, had declined from 62 to 32 percent in two months. He advised her to slow down.

But by October 2010, she couldn’t breathe. Again, she was rushed to Mayo, where she was put on oxygen and her ejection fraction was found to be 10 percent.

“I was told that I was looking at another heart transplant and also, my kidneys weren’t working, so I was looking at a kidney transplant,” Heather recalled. “I said ‘Holy crap, not again.””

By Jan. 3, her condition was so bad that she was admitted to Mayo as an inpatient. She underwent kidney dialysis and, while she was waiting, did recreational therapy, which included making a stained glass dove.

On July 27, 2011, she had her second heart transplant and her kidney transplant. She left Rochester on Oct. 27, only to break both ankles when she slipped down a step.

“We just started laughing,” Heather recalled. “This is so us.”

After ankle surgery, she moved back in with her parents because Brian had relocated to Bloomington after starting a new job. She joined him in May 2012.

In spring 2015, she was walking when she detected a lump in her left groin. She went to Mayo for tests.

“A doctor told me ‘It’s cancer.’ I said ‘I know.'”

Heather was diagnosed with an aggressive form of ovarian cancer. “They removed a tumor the size of baseball.”

Back in Bloomington, Heather began chemotherapy in July under the direction of Kumar, in consultation with Mayo.

To reduce the risk of her body rejecting her transplanted organs, Heather takes medication to suppress her immune system. That same medication suppresses her body’s ability to fight cancers, Kumar explained.

“If you are on immuno-suppressant medications, you have a higher propensity to get cancer,” he said. “She is likely to have these types of problems. It’s unfair.”

Chemo side effects were harsh.

“My body couldn’t take it,” she said. So her therapy was adjusted so she does two rounds of chemo and has two weeks off.

This month, she returns to Mayo for tests to determine whether she’s done with chemo or needs more.

“I still go to work,” she said of her job as art department head at Hobby Lobby. “I still do my job.

“I don’t remember what it’s like to be healthy. I’m looking forward to going to work and not being exhausted.”

Brian said, “I don’t know how she does it.”

“Now that Heather has gone through surgery and chemotherapy, we will continue to monitor her closely and we’ll remain optimistic and continue to fight,” Kumar said.

“It’s all in the way you deal with things,” Heather said. “I try to stay positive. That’s always who I’ve been.”

“Heather has successfully managed this and I think that’s why she’s doing well,” Kumar said. “I have learned a lot about life from Heather,” Kumar said. “I feel blessed to have been able to take care of her.”

Heather's self-penned obituary

February 18, 2018 • Dubuque Telegraph Herald

Heather Lynn Davis told this world to get lost on Friday, February 16, 2018.

She was born on July 28, 1973, and adopted shortly thereafter by Walter and Rose Neal. Turns out you really can choose your family. Upon realizing that she’d proven that piece of conventional wisdom wrong, she decided to make proving the world wrong her life’s goal.

Well, that and becoming Mrs. Donnie Wahlberg. You can’t always get what you want.

She graduated from Wahlert High School and Northeast Iowa Community College. In a moment of apparent weakness, she married Brian Davis on April 17, 2004, and upon realizing her mistake, adopted three fur babies of her own: Bob, Gordon and Chuck.

She liked musicals, bad movies and TV procedurals. She loved to cross stitch and read. She was into Chinese food, wine and her mom’s pie. She liked making the house look like Santa threw up each December. In much the same way some people buy underwear, she bought purses. She worked in a bakery but still liked donuts. She went to Mexico. She went to Hawaii. She went to Spain. (She did not go to Oklahoma). Like many kids her age, she became obsessed with New Kids On The Block and Janet Jackson. Unlike many kids her age, she got to meet them, and the aforementioned Donnie Wahlberg palmed her head like a basketball. It was difficult to get her to wash her face after that. She transcribed doctors’ notes at a mental health clinic, ran the art department for a craft store and liked the people at her cancer center so much, she went to work there.

Yeah, she had cancer — three times, and two of those times, she wrestled it to the ground, gave it a noogie and made it cry “uncle.” She also had two heart transplants and a kidney transplant. She spent entire years of her life in hospital rooms, convalescent areas and doctor waiting rooms. She did not complain. Much.

And she loved The Lion King. Like, really loved it. Like, had multiple copies and pretty much every tchotchke that had a Simba on it. (She also loved the word “tchotchke”).

Heather loved her family, and just about everyone became family. She fiercely loved her parents. She adored her brother Phillip, his wife Crystal and their children and grandchildren. (Especially the grandchildren). She loved her in-laws, Kim and Laura Davis, her sisters-in-law, Amy, Sara, Beth, Katherine, Lizzie, Elizabeth’s husband Dustin and their boy, Sterling. She treasured the women who became her sisters, Julie, Lora, Shannon and Tina, their husbands and children.

She loved and missed those who went before her: her grandparents, Horacio and Rose Gonzales and Wesley and Nellie Neal; many aunts and uncles; and her Baby Dordon.

She admired and was grateful to her doctors, nurses and staff at Finley Hospital, the Mayo Clinic, and Gift of Life Transplant House in Rochester, Minnesota.

She tolerated her husband.

In keeping with her wishes, there will be no visitation or services. Those things creeped her out.

One last thing: Heather apologizes for referring to herself in the third person in this obituary.

Wearing our hearts on our sleeves: Heather's girls

Lora Neyens (from left), of Dubuque, Tina Berning of Hazel Green, Wis., and Julie Haugen, of Dubuque, all have four-leaf clover tattoos in honor of their late friend, Heather Davis.

by Erica Lyons
July 28, 2019 • Dubuque Telegraph Herald

While Heather Davis was awaiting one of her two heart transplants, her best friends decided to get her a small, silver heart-shaped necklace.

The necklace, which was actually a locket, had etched “our hearts are always with you” on it. When it was opened, it revealed a four-leaf clover shape.

Little did Tina Berning, of Hazel Green, Wis., and Julie Haugen and Lora Neyens, both of Dubuque, know at the time that the necklace would end up inspiring a permanent image on all three of the women.

The motivation for getting a four-leaf clover tattoo came after Davis’ death in February 2018. She had battled multiple types of cancer over her adult life along with undergoing three separate organ transplants and a broken bone or two every so often also in that time.

The women had been friends for close to 30 years, Neyens explained, adding that she “never had a great desire to get a tattoo.” But after Davis’ death, “a tattoo now had meaning.”

“I’m proud when people get to see it,” she said. “It was the right move.”

The group discussed getting tattooed together before, but due to Davis’ illness and inability to get one, Haugen said, the idea was “put aside for a while.”

Tattoos came back to mind when going through some of Davis’ belongings after her death, Berning added.

“That’s when we found the locket,” she said. “And that was really like ‘We get it. We’re supposed to get them.’”

Each woman’s design is slightly different, something the group said is meant to represent their own individuality while remaining a unit.

“For me the tattoo is two-fold,” Berning said. “To me, the tattoo, yes, is about Heather because she’s just as much a leaf as the rest of us, but it’s just to show that it’s hard to find a friendship like this, and we have that.

“And she’s still our friend, even though she’s not sitting in here with us. She’s still our friend, and she will always be a part of my life.”

Haugen echoed Berning’s remarks, adding that the one-in-a-million personality and strength of Davis is also evoked in their tattoos.

“There’s no comparison to Heather,” she said. “There’s no other person in the world I think who went through what she went through, so I guess I feel like it’s unique like her.”

Neyens added, “It’s a symbol to me of Heather, but (also) of all four of us, and I am so proud of our friendship and our relationship. It’s something I don’t think I could live without at this point.”

For the trio, their tattoos are another way to keep Heather’s memory alive by serving as a conversation piece to introduce others to her.

“It’s fun to talk about her,” Neyens said. “I look forward to the opportunity when something comes up and I have an opportunity to tell someone about her.”

“Heather’s girls” said they don’t plan to add to their tattoos, though their ink will last forever as they expect their friendship will.

“We’re stuck with each other,” Neyens said jokingly. “We tease that we know too much about each other to stop being friends, so there’s just no other option.”